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Colorado School Shooter Was Seeking 'Revenge' on Debate Instructor

December 14, 2013

(CENTENNIAL, Colo.) — The Colorado teenager who barged into his high school with a shotgun on Friday, set off an explosive device, injured one student and then killed himself was seeking “revenge” on the school’s debate team instructor.

Karl Halverson Pierson, 18, entered Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo. for the last time at approximately 12:30 p.m. Friday, seeking out school librarian Tracy Murphy, sources told ABC News. Pierson asked students where to find Murphy, according to police.

Llerenas said he saw Pierson enter the building carrying a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

“I did see a young man…entering the building, running kind of military style and I looked and I double looked and [he was carrying a] shotgun,” Llerenas told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV.

Murphy runs the school debate team, and Pierson was recently kicked off the team, KMGH reports. Overnight, Murphy left his home declining to speak to reporters.

“This shooting was the result of revenge on the part of the shooter because of a confrontation or a disagreement between the shooter and the teacher that the shooter was looking for when he entered the school just before 12:33,” Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told KMGH.

A 15-year-old girl was in critical condition at a local hospital. Another student was taken to the hospital with what were thought to be wounds, but it was later determined she was not injured, and had blood stains from the other victim, police said. The name of the student who was injured was not released, and it was unclear whether Pierson intentionally targeted the victim.

Police initially said one of the students was wounded while confronting the gunman, but Robinson said it was no longer clear how the students got shot. Three other people suffered from anxiety attacks: one was transported, and the others were treated and released, police said.

Robinson said it was just five minutes between the time the school resource officer reported the shooting and found the suspect’s body. As officers closed in, Pierson turned the shotgun on himself and died at the scene, according to police.

One explosive device, described as a Molotov cocktail, was detonated inside the school, the sheriff said, while a second device was later disabled by authorities. At the same time, bomb squads and investigators began searching the home where police say Pierson lived with his mother.

“It was clear that he was armed with shotgun, no effort to hide or conceal it,” Robinson said.

Tait Priser, a witness, told ABC News the suspect was wearing a black face cover and a black hoodie.

As shots rang out, the school was immediately placed on lockdown, with teachers dimming the lights and locking their classroom doors.

“I was in math and it happened three classrooms away,” said student Berny Acosta from a nearby church where evacuated students assembled.

“There was a first shot and it happened from a classroom, and then I heard three or four more. There was a shot and then a pause and then four continuous shots. We went immediately into lockdown…. Turned all the lights off, got as far from the windows and doors as we could,” Acosta told ABC News.

“I saw blood on the ground of the study center when evacuated. That’s where there was a lot of blood on the ground. That’s where the ambulance carried people out from,” he said

The school is part of the Littleton school district and is just a few miles from Columbine High School, the scene of one of the country’s worst school massacres, in which 15 people, including two teenage gunmen, were killed.

The shooting also took place on the eve of the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which 26 people – most of them first graders – were killed.

In a scene that was eerily reminiscent of the Columbine tragedy, hundreds of students could be seen fleeing the school and then approaching police with their hands up to be searched.

Investigators questioned the gunman’s family and acquaintances but said they do not believe there are other suspects.